To Be Loved

III

"You look like you got hit by a bus." Margaux' sister Sorine pours some coffee and creamer in a large mug and passes it to Margaux who gives a sad little grunt in response. After her fight with Eli, she had fought to make it to her room before she could fully let herself cry, but those tears weren't enough to exhaust her. Instead, she'd been up all night thinking. Just thinking, of things and people. People like Eli and things like their relationship and how their relationship really, usually is. Thinking of those private, non-sexual, intimate moments when he would hold her middle with his head resting in her lap and she would gently play with his hair. Thinking of their fight last night and how much he had hurt her but trying not to thinking of that too much. So yeah, just thinking of things.

"I didn't hear you come in last night, you know. I thought you'd slept over at his house but I guess...not? Did your date go well?" Sorine, tapping her fingers on the cool stone of the kitchen island, slides into the seat across from Margaux, the swivel chair squeaking from the pressure.

"It wasn't a date," Margaux barely mumbled.

Sorine's mug reaches halfway to her mouth before pausing, Sorine's eyes widening a little from her shocked expression but quickly settling back down to hide her surprise. "Not a date?"

"Turns out he was inviting me to an outing. With his friend group." Margaux, embarrassed about bragging to her sister about their date only hours earlier, dug her head in the crook of her elbow.

"Oh..well um.." Sorine, Margaux guessed, probably wasn't sure what to say to comfort her sister. But Margaux was fine with that, in fact, she preferred that they didn't talk about it at all. Normally she'd hide these things anyway but she'd only be lying to herself if she thought the exhaustion on her face wouldn't have easily given it away.

"It's okay SoSo, it was my mistake. I'm just a little embarrassed that's all."

"Well you look more than embarrassed to me. Did you and Eli fight or something—"

"Well I mean couples fight all the time, you know? But it honestly wasn't a major argument. It's just a little—what do people call them? Spats? It was just a little spat, we'll be over it soon." Margaux threw that in quickly and offered her sister a sheepish smile before burying her face in her coffee mug. Well that wasn't obvious at all.

"What, did Margaux fight with that little boyfriend of hers again?" Margaux's mother hurriedly walked into the kitchen, gently patting Sorine on the head.

"No Mom, she says it's a 'spat'," Sorine laughs a little.

"His name is Eli and it is just a spat. It was a small argument because of my mistake. I was being emotional and he reasonably got upset, that's all. Stop making fun Sorine."

Their mother laughed and shook her head, "call it whatever you want, it's still an argument. I don't really care about whatever his name is and it seems to me like you guys argue all the time. I mean you're teenagers, since when do you guys take relationships seriously? Just break up with the guy if you're arguing so much—"

"—oh yeah, like that'll definitely fix things." Margaux ducked her head to hide her eyeroll.

"Well it worked for me and your father."

"Exactly."

Their mother started saying something along the lines of "and what does that mean" but Sorine eas quick to jump in. "Okayyy and me and Margaux will be late for school if we don't finish eating and head out soon, so let's just do that, hmm Margaux?"

Margaux's mother sighed a little, pretending to wipe dust off her nurse's uniform. "Well just make sure you don't eat too much M, you're face is puffy as is. Next thing you know, I'll be seeing you at the clinic," she joked.

Margaux felt her cheeks burn up a bit and averted her mother's gaze. Their mother, Alice, worked for the same cosmetic surgeon that did her nose way before Sorine was born and then her boobs back when Sorine and Margaux's dad had moved out. His name was Dr. Danilo and he had come over for dinner a couple times in the past few months. The sisters had assumed that he was their mother's weird version of a rebound—I mean he wasn't particularly good looking. He was old and slightly hunched over with long, wispy imitations of hair framing his head in a horseshoe shape. He was also. Like. 64. Which was absolutely disgusting.

But turns out he was some sort of family friend to their mother and her parents, and he had been helping them out financially for a bit. All Alice wanted to do was switch clinics to get away from her ex-husband, since he was working there as a nurse too. So she would invite Dr. Danilo over and talk him into hiring her, and he eventually did—which was great. It was great that Alice had a job, but it wasn't great for mostly Margaux who received the larger portion of her increased snide comments. In all honesty it was fine that their mother got plastic surgery, it was just frustrating in the weird way that she was obviously trying to push her daughters to get it too. Rhinoplasties were such a common topic in their house that the once round nose that Margaux loved seem unfamiliar and out of place when she looked in the mirror now.

Even she was smart enough to notice that, that wasn't a good sign. But what could she do? I mean her mother was usually right, and she's a nurse at a plastic surgery clinic after all, so it's possible that she could be right about this too?

Margaux looked at her plate of food and pushed it away, downing the rest of her coffee and heading to her room to get her bag.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Here, I couldn't pass this to you in the car, but you really should eat something." Sorine pushes a granola bar and a yogurt cup into her sister's hands. "Don't listen to Mom too much ok? I think she finds it funny and doesn't realize how harmful her words can be. Anyways coffee and an empty stomach is a bad combo, so please eat this before your class starts. I'll talk to you later." She gives Margaux her signature sheepish look before walking ahead of her, bouncy silver-dyed curls and her clunky, old book bag in tow.

Margaux watched her sister disappear down the luminescent hallway of smelly teens, sighing in a weird mix of amusement and relief. Her first smile of the day was finally tugging at the corners of her mouth, but she set her lips in a grim line to compose herself and walked over to her locker.

"Oh hey, are you feeling better?" A voice came from her right. A girl named Yana, leaned against the locker besides her. She was one of Eli's friends. Short with broad shoulders and muscular arms, she was a weightlifter and very good at it. A large afro that made up for her height, beautiful amber eyes  with little green specks, and a really cool nose ring. She always sported the same black retail letterman jacket with an assortment of political pins—she always showed off the big red one that said ¡Sí Se Puede!—and worn out chunky boots. She was pretty quiet, but loud with her friends when they got her rambling off in Spanish. Margaux knew her well.

"Oh, hi Yana. Yeah, I'm feeling a bit better. I think I was just really tired yesterday and probably ate something bad before heading out." Margaux gave her a small smile and tried to get her books to end the conversation as quickly as possible.

Yana eyed her for a bit, as if she knew she was lying but shrugged it off anyway and smiled back. She turned to the locker she was leaning on and opened it without barely gazing at the lock. All this time, Margaux has never realized that she owned the locker next to hers.

"That's good. I just wanted to check in since you really seemed out of it, that's all."

"Oh."
Margaux was confused why someone like Yana would care. It's not like they were friends. Nonetheless it was nice to see that someone in Eli's group took notice of her being there. She realized that all she offered was a confused expression and opened her mouth to offer Yana her thanks when she felt a tug on her sleeve. The air suddenly started to smell lightly of a beer and coffee mix and cheap cologne. It was him. Obviously it was him. Slowly, Margaux turned around to face him.

"Hey."